Sky-high heels
Jimmy Choo walks tall as it bucks the trend of falling sales in Asia
SHARES in luxury shoe chain Jimmy Choo stepped up 5pc yesterday after the company’s sales were boosted by the post-Brexit sterling slump.
The brand, made famous by Sex and the City, posted a 9.2pc jump in sales to £173.1m for the six months to the end of June while underlying earnings also rose by 12.8pc to £31.3m on the back of strong demand for its nascent menswear range.
The company said that its men’s collections now account for 8pc of sales and it expects this to grow “well into double digits” as it introduces the range into more stores.
Jimmy Choo has 147 stores globally, including 10 in the UK, and plans to open a further 10 to 15 shops a year.
Only 9.5pc of the luxury group’s revenues are in sterling, while 28pc of operating costs were denominated in sterling, which has also prompted the company to forecast that it will see an “upside” in revenues and profits.
Peter Harf, chairman of Jimmy Choo, declared that the prospects for the business “never looked better”. While many of its upmarket peers have suffered from a slowdown in demand from Chinese shoppers, Jimmy Choo said it had enjoyed “impressive growth”. In Japan, where a flagship store is due to open next year, the sale of men’s shoes represented 26pc of revenue from the region.
Nivindya Sharma, senior analyst at Verdict Retail, said: “Jimmy Choo has bucked the trend and reported an impressive growth in Asia, with China leading the way, proving its measured approach to store expansion and brand building is successful without overexposing the brand.”
However, the company did caution that tourist spending on luxury accessories had declined in Europe since the end of 2015 following terrorist attacks, although its global growth elsewhere had offset the dip.
The US still proves to be problematic for Jimmy Choo as department store sales wane, dragging revenues in North America down by 3.4pc.
Jimmy Choo listed on the London stock market in 2014 after passing through several private equity hands. The company is still controlled by JAB Luxury, the investment arm of the German billionaire Reimann family, which also owns an 8pc stake in consumer group Reckitt Benckiser.
Former Vogue accessories editor Tamara Mellon originally set up Jimmy Choo in 1996 with a Hackney based Malaysian–born cobbler but she left in 2011 after a bitter fallout with private equity owners which she documented in a book In Her Shoes.
Earlier this year Ms Mellon won a legal battle with a City trio including Carphone Warehouse founder David Ross, former Tory trade minister Lord Marland and Icap boss Michael Spencer, who had tried to take control of her follow-up fashion venture in a US bankruptcy court.